This invention relates to documents and more particularly to counterfeit resistant documents suitable for use as negotiable instruments.
Certain negotiable instruments used in commerce, such as bank drafts, are often printed with black ink on rectangular sheets of paper having a multicolor background. As negotiable instruments, these documents include indicia representative of such transaction parameters as the date, account number, amount, payee, drawer and drawee bank. Commercial practice has generally established procedures to minimize fraudulent activity with respect to such documents, particularly, in view of recently developed computer-based banking systems and credit authorization systems and the like. Such systems can provide a rapid verification of account numbers, account balances and in some cases signature verifications.
However, such documents may readily be copied using conventional black and white copiers and colored stock matching the background of the original document. With the advent of color xerographic copying machines, it is now possible for a party to directly make counterfeit copies of multicolor background documents, such as bank drafts, and fraudulently present those copies for payment. To counteract this fraudulent activity, the prior art relies largely on the ability of the party presented with a draft, a teller for example, to detect the counterfeit documents as such from a visual scan of the document. As technological advances have improved the quality of color xerographic copiers so that reproduced documents bear a closer resemblance to the original, this counterfeit detection task has become increasingly difficult.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a counterfeit resistant document suitable for use as a negotiable instrument, such as a bank draft.